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The Pediatric Brain Tumour Study Group (PBTSG)

at McMaster University

 Founded in 2015

Under the leadership of Dr. Sheila Singh and Dr. Adam Fleming, PBTSG has flourished into a multi-disciplinary research network replete with potential for clinical questioning. Over 20 health professionals and 15 students have endeavored to create this holistic and comprehensive database. 

PBTSG 

Our Vision

PBTSG originally was inspired by the intriguing questions raised at the Longitudinal Pediatric Neuro-oncology clinic founded by Drs. Rob Hollenberg and Anthony Whitton, where case studies of pediatric patients treated for brain tumors were followed over time and discussed with a multi-disciplinary audience. Yet, for want of resources and time, many of these questions remained unexplored. 

 

Hence, PBTSG was founded to provide eager and bright young students the opportunity to participate in novel clinical research. With multiple publications submitted or under review, national and international meeting presentations and multiple more manuscripts in preparation, PBTSG has clearly been productive and demonstrated the potential of both the data accumulated over the years and of the students who performed its extraction. 

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Our Procedure

Students are assigned broad readings on pediatric brain and spinal cord tumors, and are trained in database entry and data acquisition and extraction from medical records, while attending the pediatric neuro-oncology clinic weekly to hear patient case discussions. As they populate the database and work as a team, they organically develop their own research questions, which they check with PubMed and literature searches to ensure the novelty of theresearch question. Once a novel question is determined and vetted by the group, appropriate expert faculty mentors are assigned and study design, data analysis and manuscript and presentation preparation ensues. Undergraduate students may use their group participation and projects in the form of an undergraduate thesiscourse, with every student aiming to prepare a manuscript for publication.

 

More information may be found in this McMaster Neurosurgery Research Update: https://surgery.mcmaster.ca/docs/default-source/neuro/neurosurgery-research/neurosurgery-research-update-november-2016-teaser-featuring-pbtsg.pdf?sfvrsn=2

"If you give a student data..."

Neuro-Oncology Clinic

The Multi-disciplinary Longitudinal Pediatric Neuro-oncology
clinic was originally founded by  Drs. Rob Hollenberg and Anthony Whitton. Featuring specialists from diverse backgrounds, the weekly discussions regarding these pediatric cases has inspired much deliberation. Members attend these weekly meetings, gaining astute insight into the clinical decision making surrounding pediatric brain tumor cases, and gaining inspiration for their own research and thesis projects. 

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